This invention relates to the field of athletic shoes, and particularly to shoes providing support for the foot muscles and ankle.
There are many varieties of athletic shoes on the market today, but surprisingly none that provide support for the foot muscles underlying and surrounding the arch and which also provide support for the ankle, while still allowing for some flexibility of the foot and ankle. Such support is needed for sports providing high stress to the foot and foot muscles, such as power lifting. A shoe highly suited for such activities is more fully described below.
A shoe is disclosed that has dual lacing to enable a better, more secure fit, and better ankle and foot support than single lacing provides. The shoe has closer spacing of eyelets for the lacing, at least over the ankle area, than is traditional or common with lace-up shoes. These eyelets or grommets to facilitate the lacing are in dual sides or side layers of the shoe which extend from the body of the shoe at least to the ankle of the wearer. Preferably, these layers fully cover or extend past the ankle. The interior layer also extends under at least the arch of the foot. In one embodiment an elastic-material type insert is located near the arch. The exterior layer may also extend under the foot or may connect to the main body of the shoe along the sides or top surface of the sole or inner sole. At least one of the layers has an insert of a strong, flexible material attached over at least one slit positioned over the ankle area. The shoe has a tongue attached to the main body of the shoe,